1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to electronic devices, and more particularly to electronic devices with biometric sensors.
2. Background Art
Mobile electronic communication devices, such as mobile telephones, smart phones, gaming devices, and the like, are used by billions of people. The owners of such devices come from all walks of life. These owners use mobile communication devices for many different purposes including, but not limited to, voice communications, text messaging, Internet browsing, commerce such as banking, and social networking. The circumstances under which users of mobile communication device use their devices varies widely as well.
In using mobile communication devices for so many applications, a user is likely to have a wide variety of personal passcodes that are used to access the device, an application, or combinations thereof. Such passcodes are generally required to access personal information on an electronic device, access email, retrieve bank records, and so forth. Frequently these passcodes are required to meet strict security guidelines and can thus become lengthy and difficult to remember. Moreover, for security purposes, many devices and systems require the user to change each passcode on a regular basis. Accordingly, remembering all these passcodes can be difficult.
To alleviate this issue, some modern electronic devices are being equipped with biometric sensors. Rather than entering a passcode, a user touches or otherwise interacts with a biometric sensor to identify their identity and acquire access to a device or particular application. While biometric sensors may eliminate the need to memorize many different passcodes, they are not without issues of their own. For example, they can be slow. For example, comparing a retinal scan or a fingerprint to a reference to determine whether there is a match takes a large amount of processing power and can be slow. It would be advantageous to have an improved system for accessing an electronic device, personal information, or applications operating on an electronic device.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present disclosure.